A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a short string of characters identifying
an abstract or physical resource (for example, a web page). A Uniform Resource
Locator (URL) is a URI that identifies a resource through its primary access
mechanism (e.g., its network "location"), rather than by name or
some other attribute of that resource. A Uniform Resource Name (URN) is a URI
that must remain globally unique and persistent even when the resource ceases
to exist or becomes unavailable.

URIs are the standard way to name hypertext link destinations for tools such as
web browsers. The string "http://www.kernel.org" is a URL (and thus
it is also a URI). Many people use the term URL loosely as a synonym for URI
(though technically URLs are a subset of URIs).

URIs can be absolute or relative. An absolute identifier refers to a resource
independent of context, while a relative identifier refers to a resource by
describing the difference from the current context. Within a relative path
reference, the complete path segments "." and ".." have
special meanings: "the current hierarchy level" and "the level
above this hierarchy level", respectively, just like they do in UNIX-like
systems. A path segment which contains a colon character can't be used as the
first segment of a relative URI path (e.g., "this:that"), because it
would be mistaken for a scheme name; precede such segments with ./ (e.g.,
"./this:that"). Note that descendants of MS-DOS (e.g., Microsoft
Windows) replace devicename colons with the vertical bar ("|") in
URIs, so "C:" becomes "C|".

A fragment identifier, if included, refers to a particular named portion
(fragment) of a resource; text after a '#' identifies the fragment. A URI
beginning with '#' refers to that fragment in the current resource.

There are many different URI schemes, each with specific additional rules and
meanings, but they are intentionally made to be as similar as possible. For
example, many URL schemes permit the authority to be the following format,
called here an ip_server (square brackets show what's optional):

ip_server
= [user [ : password ] @ ] host [ :
port]

This format allows you to optionally insert a username, a user plus password,
and/or a port number. The host is the name of the host computer, either
its name as determined by DNS or an IP address (numbers separated by periods).
Thus the URI <http://fred:fredpassword@example.com:8080/> logs into a
web server on host example.com as fred (using fredpassword) using port 8080.
Avoid including a password in a URI if possible because of the many security
risks of having a password written down. If the URL supplies a username but no
password, and the remote server requests a password, the program interpreting
the URL should request one from the user.

Here are some of the most common schemes in use on UNIX-like systems that are
understood by many tools. Note that many tools using URIs also have internal
schemes or specialized schemes; see those tools' documentation for information
on those schemes.

http - Web (HTTP) server

http://ip_server/path

http://ip_server/path?query

This is a URL accessing a web (HTTP) server. The default port is 80. If the path
refers to a directory, the web server will choose what to return; usually if
there is a file named "index.html" or "index.htm" its
content is returned, otherwise, a list of the files in the current directory
(with appropriate links) is generated and returned. An example is
<http://lwn.net>.

A query can be given in the archaic "isindex" format, consisting of a
word or phrase and not including an equal sign (=). A query can also be in the
longer "GET" format, which has one or more query entries of the form
key=value separated by the ampersand character (&). Note
that key can be repeated more than once, though it's up to the web
server and its application programs to determine if there's any meaning to
that. There is an unfortunate interaction with HTML/XML/SGML and the GET query
format; when such URIs with more than one key are embedded in SGML/XML
documents (including HTML), the ampersand (&) has to be rewritten as
&amp;. Note that not all queries use this format; larger forms may be too
long to store as a URI, so they use a different interaction mechanism (called
POST) which does not include the data in the URI. See the Common Gateway
Interface specification at
http://www.w3.org/CGI
for more information.

ftp - File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

ftp://ip_server/path

This is a URL accessing a file through the file transfer protocol (FTP). The
default port (for control) is 21. If no username is included, the username
"anonymous" is supplied, and in that case many clients provide as
the password the requestor's Internet email address. An example is
<ftp://ftp.is.co.za/rfc/rfc1808.txt>.

gopher - Gopher server

gopher://ip_server/gophertype selector

gopher://ip_server/gophertype selector%09search

gopher://ip_server/gophertype
selector%09search%09gopher+_string

The default gopher port is 70. gophertype is a single-character field to
denote the Gopher type of the resource to which the URL refers. The entire
path may also be empty, in which case the delimiting "/" is also
optional and the gophertype defaults to "1".

selector is the Gopher selector string. In the Gopher protocol, Gopher
selector strings are a sequence of octets which may contain any octets except
09 hexadecimal (US-ASCII HT or tab), 0A hexadecimal (US-ASCII character LF),
and 0D (US-ASCII character CR).

mailto - Email address

mailto:email-address

This is an email address, usually of the form name@hostname. See
mailaddr(7) for more information on the correct format of an email
address. Note that any % character must be rewritten as %25. An example is
<mailto:dwheeler@dwheeler.com>.

news - Newsgroup or News message

news:newsgroup-name

news:message-id

A newsgroup-name is a period-delimited hierarchical name, such as
"comp.infosystems.www.misc". If <newsgroup-name> is
"*" (as in <news:*>), it is used to refer to "all
available news groups". An example is <news:comp.lang.ada>.

A message-id corresponds to the Message-ID of
IETF
RFC 1036, without the enclosing "<" and
">"; it takes the form unique@full_domain_name. A
message identifier may be distinguished from a news group name by the presence
of the "@" character.

telnet - Telnet login

telnet://ip_server/

The Telnet URL scheme is used to designate interactive text services that may be
accessed by the Telnet protocol. The final "/" character may be
omitted. The default port is 23. An example is
<telnet://melvyl.ucop.edu/>.

file - Normal file

file://ip_server/path_segments

file:path_segments

This represents a file or directory accessible locally. As a special case,
ip_server can be the string "localhost" or the empty string;
this is interpreted as "the machine from which the URL is being
interpreted". If the path is to a directory, the viewer should display
the directory's contents with links to each containee; not all viewers
currently do this. KDE supports generated files through the URL
<file:/cgi-bin>. If the given file isn't found, browser writers may want
to try to expand the filename via filename globbing (see glob(7) and
glob(3)).

The second format (e.g., <file:/etc/passwd>) is a correct format for
referring to a local file. However, older standards did not permit this
format, and some programs don't recognize this as a URI. A more portable
syntax is to use an empty string as the server name, for example,
<file:///etc/passwd>; this form does the same thing and is easily
recognized by pattern matchers and older programs as a URI. Note that if you
really mean to say "start from the current location," don't specify
the scheme at all; use a relative address like <../test.txt>, which has
the side-effect of being scheme-independent. An example of this scheme is
<file:///etc/passwd>.

man - Man page documentation

man:command-name

man:command-name(section)

This refers to local online manual (man) reference pages. The command name can
optionally be followed by a parenthesis and section number; see man(7)
for more information on the meaning of the section numbers. This URI scheme is
unique to UNIX-like systems (such as Linux) and is not currently registered by
the IETF. An example is <man:ls(1)>.

info - Info page documentation

info:virtual-filename

info:virtual-filename#nodename

info:(virtual-filename)

info:(virtual-filename)nodename

This scheme refers to online info reference pages (generated from texinfo
files), a documentation format used by programs such as the GNU tools. This
URI scheme is unique to UNIX-like systems (such as Linux) and is not currently
registered by the IETF. As of this writing, GNOME and KDE differ in their URI
syntax and do not accept the other's syntax. The first two formats are the
GNOME format; in nodenames all spaces are written as underscores. The second
two formats are the KDE format; spaces in nodenames must be written as spaces,
even though this is forbidden by the URI standards. It's hoped that in the
future most tools will understand all of these formats and will always accept
underscores for spaces in nodenames. In both GNOME and KDE, if the form
without the nodename is used the nodename is assumed to be "Top".
Examples of the GNOME format are <info:gcc> and
<info:gcc#G++_and_GCC>. Examples of the KDE format are
<info:(gcc)> and <info:(gcc)G++ and GCC>.

whatis - Documentation search

whatis:string

This scheme searches the database of short (one-line) descriptions of commands
and returns a list of descriptions containing that string. Only complete word
matches are returned. See whatis(1). This URI scheme is unique to
UNIX-like systems (such as Linux) and is not currently registered by the IETF.

ghelp - GNOME help documentation

ghelp:name-of-application

This loads GNOME help for the given application. Note that not much
documentation currently exists in this format.

ldap - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

ldap://hostport

ldap://hostport/

ldap://hostport/dn

ldap://hostport/dn?attributes

ldap://hostport/dn?attributes?scope

ldap://hostport/dn?attributes?scope?filter

ldap://hostport/dn?attributes?scope?filter?extensions

This scheme supports queries to the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
(LDAP), a protocol for querying a set of servers for hierarchically organized
information (such as people and computing resources). See
RFC 2255
for more information on the LDAP URL scheme. The components of this URL are:

hostport

the LDAP server to query, written as a hostname optionally
followed by a colon and the port number. The default LDAP port is TCP port
389. If empty, the client determines which the LDAP server to use.

dn

the LDAP Distinguished Name, which identifies the base
object of the LDAP search (see

a comma-separated list of type=value pairs, where the
=value portion may be omitted for options not requiring it. An extension
prefixed with a '!' is critical (must be supported to be valid), otherwise
it is noncritical (optional).

LDAP queries are easiest to explain by example. Here's a query that asks
ldap.itd.umich.edu for information about the University of Michigan in the
U.S.:

This scheme designates a WAIS database, search, or document (see
IETF
RFC 1625 for more information on WAIS). Hostport is the hostname,
optionally followed by a colon and port number (the default port number is
210).

The first form designates a WAIS database for searching. The second form
designates a particular search of the WAIS database database. The third
form designates a particular document within a WAIS database to be retrieved.
wtype is the WAIS designation of the type of the object and
wpath is the WAIS document-id.

other schemes

There are many other URI schemes. Most tools that accept URIs support a set of
internal URIs (e.g., Mozilla has the about: scheme for internal information,
and the GNOME help browser has the toc: scheme for various starting
locations). There are many schemes that have been defined but are not as
widely used at the current time (e.g., prospero). The nntp: scheme is
deprecated in favor of the news: scheme. URNs are to be supported by the urn:
scheme, with a hierarchical name space (e.g., urn:ietf:... would identify IETF
documents); at this time URNs are not widely implemented. Not all tools
support all schemes.

URIs use a limited number of characters so that they can be typed in and used in
a variety of situations.

The following characters are reserved, that is, they may appear in a URI but
their use is limited to their reserved purpose (conflicting data must be
escaped before forming the URI):

; / ? : @ & = + $ ,

Unreserved characters may be included in a URI. Unreserved characters include
uppercase and lowercase English letters, decimal digits, and the following
limited set of punctuation marks and symbols:

- _ . ! ~ * ' ( )

All other characters must be escaped. An escaped octet is encoded as a character
triplet, consisting of the percent character "%" followed by the two
hexadecimal digits representing the octet code (you can use uppercase or
lowercase letters for the hexadecimal digits). For example, a blank space must
be escaped as "%20", a tab character as "%09", and the
"&" as "%26". Because the percent "%"
character always has the reserved purpose of being the escape indicator, it
must be escaped as "%25". It is common practice to escape space
characters as the plus symbol (+) in query text; this practice isn't uniformly
defined in the relevant RFCs (which recommend %20 instead) but any tool
accepting URIs with query text should be prepared for them. A URI is always
shown in its "escaped" form.

Unreserved characters can be escaped without changing the semantics of the URI,
but this should not be done unless the URI is being used in a context that
does not allow the unescaped character to appear. For example, "%7e"
is sometimes used instead of "~" in an HTTP URL path, but the two
are equivalent for an HTTP URL.

For URIs which must handle characters outside the US ASCII character set, the
HTML 4.01 specification (section B.2) and IETF RFC 2718 (section 2.2.5)
recommend the following approach:

1.

translate the character sequences into UTF-8 (IETF
RFC 2279)—see utf-8(7)—and then

2.

use the URI escaping mechanism, that is, use the %HH
encoding for unsafe octets.

When written, URIs should be placed inside double quotes (e.g.,
"http://www.kernel.org"), enclosed in angle brackets (e.g.,
<http://lwn.net>), or placed on a line by themselves. A warning for
those who use double-quotes: never move extraneous punctuation (such as
the period ending a sentence or the comma in a list) inside a URI, since this
will change the value of the URI. Instead, use angle brackets instead, or
switch to a quoting system that never includes extraneous characters inside
quotation marks. This latter system, called the 'new' or 'logical' quoting
system by "Hart's Rules" and the "Oxford Dictionary for Writers
and Editors", is preferred practice in Great Britain and hackers
worldwide (see the Jargon File's section on Hacker Writing Style,
http://www.fwi.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/h/HackerWritingStyle.html
for more information). Older documents suggested inserting the prefix
"URL:" just before the URI, but this form has never caught on.

The URI syntax was designed to be unambiguous. However, as URIs have become
commonplace, traditional media (television, radio, newspapers, billboards,
etc.) have increasingly used abbreviated URI references consisting of only the
authority and path portions of the identified resource (e.g.,
<www.w3.org/Addressing>). Such references are primarily intended for
human interpretation rather than machine, with the assumption that
context-based heuristics are sufficient to complete the URI (e.g., hostnames
beginning with "www" are likely to have a URI prefix of
"http://" and hostnames beginning with "ftp" likely to
have a prefix of "ftp://"). Many client implementations
heuristically resolve these references. Such heuristics may change over time,
particularly when new schemes are introduced. Since an abbreviated URI has the
same syntax as a relative URL path, abbreviated URI references cannot be used
where relative URIs are permitted, and can be used only when there is no
defined base (such as in dialog boxes). Don't use abbreviated URIs as
hypertext links inside a document; use the standard format as described here.

Any tool accepting URIs (e.g., a web browser) on a Linux system should be able
to handle (directly or indirectly) all of the schemes described here,
including the man: and info: schemes. Handling them by invoking some other
program is fine and in fact encouraged.

Technically the fragment isn't part of the URI.

For information on how to embed URIs (including URLs) in a data format, see
documentation on that format. HTML uses the format <A HREF="
uri"> text </A>. Texinfo files use the format
@uref{ uri}. Man and mdoc have the recently added UR macro, or just
include the URI in the text (viewers should be able to detect :// as part of a
URI).

The GNOME and KDE desktop environments currently vary in the URIs they accept,
in particular in their respective help browsers. To list man pages, GNOME uses
<toc:man> while KDE uses <man:(index)>, and to list info pages,
GNOME uses <toc:info> while KDE uses <info:(dir)> (the author of
this man page prefers the KDE approach here, though a more regular format
would be even better). In general, KDE uses <file:/cgi-bin/> as a prefix
to a set of generated files. KDE prefers documentation in HTML, accessed via
the <file:/cgi-bin/helpindex>. GNOME prefers the ghelp scheme to store
and find documentation. Neither browser handles file: references to
directories at the time of this writing, making it difficult to refer to an
entire directory with a browsable URI. As noted above, these environments
differ in how they handle the info: scheme, probably the most important
variation. It is expected that GNOME and KDE will converge to common URI
formats, and a future version of this man page will describe the converged
result. Efforts to aid this convergence are encouraged.

A URI does not in itself pose a security threat. There is no general guarantee
that a URL, which at one time located a given resource, will continue to do
so. Nor is there any guarantee that a URL will not locate a different resource
at some later point in time; such a guarantee can be obtained only from the
person(s) controlling that namespace and the resource in question.

It is sometimes possible to construct a URL such that an attempt to perform a
seemingly harmless operation, such as the retrieval of an entity associated
with the resource, will in fact cause a possibly damaging remote operation to
occur. The unsafe URL is typically constructed by specifying a port number
other than that reserved for the network protocol in question. The client
unwittingly contacts a site that is in fact running a different protocol. The
content of the URL contains instructions that, when interpreted according to
this other protocol, cause an unexpected operation. An example has been the
use of a gopher URL to cause an unintended or impersonating message to be sent
via a SMTP server.

Caution should be used when using any URL that specifies a port number other
than the default for the protocol, especially when it is a number within the
reserved space.

Care should be taken when a URI contains escaped delimiters for a given protocol
(for example, CR and LF characters for telnet protocols) that these are not
unescaped before transmission. This might violate the protocol, but avoids the
potential for such characters to be used to simulate an extra operation or
parameter in that protocol, which might lead to an unexpected and possibly
harmful remote operation to be performed.

It is clearly unwise to use a URI that contains a password which is intended to
be secret. In particular, the use of a password within the
"userinfo" component of a URI is strongly recommended against except
in those rare cases where the "password" parameter is intended to be
public.

Documentation may be placed in a variety of locations, so there currently isn't
a good URI scheme for general online documentation in arbitrary formats.
References of the form <file:///usr/doc/ZZZ> don't work because
different distributions and local installation requirements may place the
files in different directories (it may be in /usr/doc, or /usr/local/doc, or
/usr/share, or somewhere else). Also, the directory ZZZ usually changes when a
version changes (though filename globbing could partially overcome this).
Finally, using the file: scheme doesn't easily support people who dynamically
load documentation from the Internet (instead of loading the files onto a
local filesystem). A future URI scheme may be added (e.g.,
"userdoc:") to permit programs to include cross-references to more
detailed documentation without having to know the exact location of that
documentation. Alternatively, a future version of the filesystem specification
may specify file locations sufficiently so that the file: scheme will be able
to locate documentation.

Many programs and file formats don't include a way to incorporate or implement
links using URIs.

Many programs can't handle all of these different URI formats; there should be a
standard mechanism to load an arbitrary URI that automatically detects the
users' environment (e.g., text or graphics, desktop environment, local user
preferences, and currently executing tools) and invokes the right tool for any
URI.

This page is part of release 4.15 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest
version of this page, can be found at
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.